Huh:

City lawmakers who are negotiating with the archdiocese over the language of the bill should try to settle it without acrimony — but not by abandoning the District’s equal-rights tradition or by selling out same-sex couples.

Since when does the Catholic Church get directly included into the policy process. Listen, I understand that the concern here is not gay marriage but Catholic Charities being forced to provide same-sex partner benefits. And that is only a concern because Catholic Charities gets public funds.

This is of course the concern about faith-based initiatives. It gets the state too involved in the church and vice versa. Yet these groups can be effective. It seems reasonable to apply certain requirements to public funding and it is ultimately up to the charities whether they can live with those requirements.

Should we demand that a place like Catholic Charities higher gay people when it is against the tenets of the church? To not provide such protections is a very dangerous slippery slope such that I suppose a better question, why would a gay person want to work for the Catholic Church (insert your priest joke here). Same goes for non-Catholics (since discrimination on the basis of religion has previously been a concern with faith based initiatives).

Anyway, whatever else might be said, the District of Columbia should not be held hostage by the will of the church, but policy makers need to be aware of the effect on their population if Catholic Charities is reduced in its capacity to serve due to the loss of public funds. My final point is that this whole affair is a good indication of why leaving things to charity seems less efficient than a proper welfare state.

Does Kate Moss have a responsibility to not say things like this?

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

Feministing has reacted with great fury to this statement as a contributor to eating disorders and problems with unrealistic ideal bodies. And it may do these things. But does she actually have a responsibility to thus avoid making statements?

I think this creates an odd duality where Moss is being treated as being as existing outside the system. I’d say this statement shows just how much she is afflicted by the same pressures that she contributes to. Sure, she is famous now, but she exists in a world where her main value (and the continuation of it) depends on her internalizing such a prioritization of thinness.

To attack Kate Moss over this statement seems like victim-blaming every bit as much for those with eating disorders who participate in websites that support such behaviors. The result of their sickness may contribute to a perpetuation of such ailments, but it is the result of one all the same. Just because Kate Moss is famous and potentially influential (though I’d debate how much stock individual girls really put in what Kate Moss thinks) does not change this, and the personal nature in which feministing is striking out at Kate Moss seems troublesome.

Given my repeated covering of the topic, I would be failing in my duties if I did not point out that Newsweek recently included Web Predators on its list of the ten most overblown fears of the past decade. Via that article, we find this one from early in the year:

A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.
[...]
The task force, led by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, looked at scientific data on online sexual predators and found that children and teenagers were unlikely to be propositioned by adults online. In the cases that do exist, the report said, teenagers are typically willing participants and are already at risk because of poor home environments, substance abuse or other problems.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone with common sense and a passing knowledge of teen psychology. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it tends to be consensual (age of consent laws aside). Maybe that teens are offering consent to older strangers over the web is a sign of problems in the child, but it is not proof of an unsafe world.

But for some, there is never enough to show that the world is safe:

Not everyone was happy with the conclusions. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, who has forcefully pursued the issue and helped to create the task force, said he disagreed with the report. Mr. Blumenthal said it “downplayed the predator threat,” relied on outdated research and failed to provide a specific plan for improving the safety of social networking.

“Children are solicited every day online,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Some fall prey, and the results are tragic. That harsh reality defies the statistical academic research underlying the report.”

Shorter Blumenthal: “Who are you going to trust, science or my lying eyes?”

I thought this NYT Magazine article on issues related to paternity and child support was really interesting. Basically, DNA testing has become easy enough that a certain number of men are finding that their children are not actually their children. They then face the conundrum because they have developed an emotional bond with this child but face the reality that it is not their biological offspring and, more relevant, are the product of deception and infidelity of their wives.

Basically, the current legal system says that, if they are even able to contest their responsibility to the child, they either have to cut off ties completely or else retain full financial burden with child support. There is no middle ground where the emotional attachment with the child is given credence but the financial responsibility is largely removed.

The main story is one where the “father” divorces the mother but has joint custody and willingly pays child support…that is, until the biological father enters the picture and marries the mother. The “father” still wants to be in the child’s life, but he does not see why he should be legally obligated to provide support for that intact family unit when the father is there to provide. This seems a convincing argument.

There is a rather sexist element involved in post-divorce financial obligations. Where no child exists there is still this absurd notion that (typically) the man should provide support for the woman. That might have made sense at a time when women were not in the workforce, but now that two-worker families are the norm (especially prior to having children) it is absurd to think that a woman should get the right to a man’s support in this manner.

Children of course make things trickier. In the case above, it certainly seems reasonable that the “father” finance the daughter’s time with him. It is less clear that he should have to finance her time with her father and mother. To some degree it seems that when a man is cuckolded, his financial obligation ceases and that his desire to remain in the child’s life due to an emotional bond should be a fulfillment of responsibility, not something that demands further responsibilities. The current set-up seems to be quite rewarding of a woman’s (and the man she cheats with’s) duplicity. Biology should not be everything, but when it is proof of deception it should at least mean something, and it seems to be in the child’s interest (which seems to be the aim of the laws in these areas) to not make it an all or nothing proposition.

I don’t see how this could possibly be a good idea:

Citizens and industry groups squared off Wednesday over a proposal to temporarily weaken penalties for bars, casinos and stores caught illegally selling alcohol to minors — if they voluntarily train employees in a responsible alcohol sales and service course.

So let me get this straight, as a reward for a vendor taking the step to train their staff to avoid wrongful sales, you give them lax punishment for wrongful sales? Yeah, and if I take a class teaching me the Ten Commandments, I should be given a free pass the next time I rob someone.

Listen, we at VWI are big fans of alcohol, and I actually think some of the policies restricting alcohol are a bit silly (Sunday sale restrictions) but the power of the alcohol lobby is fierce. They have convinced the world that they should take absolutely no responsibility for the fact that their product is the third leading cause of lifestyle-related death. If pot could get one percent of alcohol’s lobbying presence it would have been legalized long ago the same way that the prohibition experiment failed with alcohol.

Via MattY:

Not a particularly effective trailer. My favorite part is the line about how the President and Congress is supposed to serve “us.” You know what? The President and Congress is supposed to serve the majority, not a fringe group of crackpots. That is one of the problems I see on both the right and the left is the notion that if the government disagrees with you, it must be acting in a tyrannous fashion because we all seem to picture ourselves as being part of the majority.

It makes me ache when I hear liberals defend the filibuster because it allowed them to keep a few extreme judges from being appointed. That is a pretty shallow victory if it costs us health reform and climate change legislation, etc. Elections should mean something. Liberals certainly had better reason than the alleged majority of conservative that presently think ACORN stole the election for Obama to believe that they were actually in the majority when out of power (Gore did win the popular vote if nothing else) but it is dangerous to react so instinctually from an assumption that what one holds to be right is popular.

I thought this was really awesome:

A North Dakota program that distributes venison to the needy is halfway toward its goal of getting 700 deer from hunters this fall.

People like to hunt in North Dakota, but processing a deer is expensive (and they provide a lot of meat so most can’t handle more anyway). Venison is very healthy meat because the deer are in the wild…lean and fed by natural grasses and such. Also, deer tend to be overpopulated due to a lack of predators.

For the cost of subsidizing the processing of the meat, you get to provide healthy meat to poor families while simultaneously supporting your hunting community and keeping the deer population in check. You could probably pay for the program as part of hunting license fees. It is win-win-win.

I talk about a lot of abstract social things that aren’t going to change a lot anytime soon and a lot of big political things that are either impractical or removed from my own concerns to the point that I won’t feel a ton of direct impact. However, this is something very near and dear to me:

If Denver-area voters do not approve a sales-tax hike and if the federal government fails to contribute $1 billion for the FasTracks public-private partnership, RTD will only be able to build one more rail line – the train to DIA, agency planners told area mayors Tuesday.
[...]
FasTracks needs an additional $2.3 billion if the Regional Transportation District is to stay on schedule for building its planned total of six new rail lines, three rail extensions to existing lines, and other transit elements by 2017.

I feel the DIA leg is the most important pending line, but listen, the problems with the project are external to its planning wisdom. Establishing a well built rail system would make Denver a vastly more livable city and provide great spurs to economic development. Most of the new lines would probably not benefit me in the short term (I’d use a rail to DIA or to Boulder) but as I look for an apartment, having a light-rail line nearby provides an immediate boost, allowing me to look further away from downtown in certain areas.

Anyway, if there is anything I endorse and would pound the pavement in support of, it would be for RTD expansions. Anyone in the Denver metro, please support this very modest sales tax increase (if it does come to ballot) and get the word out.

The debate about where to draw the line on federal funding with abortion could use some better definitions:

A new study from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services reports that “the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.”

What does medically indicated mean and how can a bill that provides clear exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, threaten medically indicated? When is an abortion medically indicated but doesn’t threaten the life of the mother? I’m not asking this with any sarcasm, I just don’t find these varying terminologies helpful. When I hear the phrase “elective abortion,” I assume that means a perfectly healthy pregnancy terminated because the woman has no interest in carrying to term. Does elective abortion include medically indicated abortions where the fetus shows some condition that might favor abortion even if it doesn’t threaten the health of the mother?

Anyway, as I’ve stated, I don’t think we have any right to not have our taxes go somewhere we don’t like (though the majority has such a right, not counting anti-majoritarian features like the Senate), so I personally oppose such restrictions even though I am anti-abortion as a matter of personal principle. However, given the political realities, maybe this ambiguity in language can be used to the advantage of pro-choicers to at least protect a slightly larger class of abortion within what is allowed?

Prior to this past campaign season, it was commonly held that Senators don’t make good Presidential candidates. People, the conventional wisdom reasoned, like the executive experience of a Governor. But somehow Senators headed both of the party tickets and in the case of Barack Obama, he picked a long-time Senator in Joe Biden to be VP.

I was a big fan of Biden on the merits and especially thought the Senate experience was important, as the policy legacy of any Democratic administration would live or die in the Senate. Now we hear this:

Anticipating a major struggle, the White House deputized Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to join Vice President Joe Biden in trying to clear the way for the bill’s approval over the next several weeks.

Salazar, a former Colorado senator, is viewed as a bridge to moderate Democrats who are far outnumbered by liberals inside the Democratic caucus.

I’m not sure Biden will make the difference, but I can’t imagine it will hurt. And as much as I was not fond of Salazar as a Senator (I figure he doesn’t have to play at his overly moderate posturing in the cabinet), I think he can do some good too, though he didn’t spend very long in the Senate.